---
title: The dragon let fall the sacks from terror, and then picked them up a… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The dragon let fall the sacks from terror, and then picked them up again. Who acts: dragon. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 198

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The dragon let fall the sacks from terror, and then picked them up again.

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**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** let, fall, pick up · **To what, where:** sacks, terror

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dragon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg641:13:198
# text = The dragon let fall the sacks from terror, and then picked them up again.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	sacks	sack	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	terror	terror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
12	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
15	again	again	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | past | the dragon |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fall** | infinitive | the dragon *not said here* | the sacks |  | terror |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V NP.extent PP.source PP.goal»: agent=Patient sack=Extent from terror=Initial\_State |
| 3 | **pick up** | past | the dragon *not said here* | sacks *= sack* |  |  | then; again |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Topic |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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